University of Virginia Library

Extract from the Author's Preface (1891).

Our epoch, the post-Wagnerian age, is the age of brilliance and
imaginative quality in orchestral tone colouring. Berlioz, Glinka,
Liszt, Wagner, modern French composers — Delibes, Bizet, and
others; those of the new russian school — Borodin, Balakirev,
Glazounov and Tschaikovsky — have brought this side of musical
art to its zenith; the have eclipsed, as colourists, their predecessors,
Weber, Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, to whose genius,
nevertheless, they are indebted for their own progress. In writing
this book my chief aim has been to provide the well-informed
reader with the fundamental principles of modern orchestration
from the standpoint of brilliance and imagination, and I have
devoted considerable space to the study of tonal resonance and
orchestral combination.

I have tried to show the student how to obtain a certain quality
of tone, how to acquire uniformity of structure and requisite power.
I have specified the character of certain melodic figures and
designs peculiar to each instrument or orchestral group, and
reduced these questions briefly and clearly to general principles;
in short I have endeavoured to furnish the pupil with matter and
material as carefully and minutely studied as possible. Nevertheless
I do not claim to instruct him as to how such information
should be put to artistic use, nor to establish my examples in
their rightful place in the poetic language of music. For, just as
as handbook of harmony, counterpoint, or form presents the student
with harmonic or polyphonic matter, principles of construction,
formal arrangement, and sound technical methods, but will never
endow him with the talent for composition, so a treatise on orchestration
can demonstrate how to produce a well-sounding chord

of certain tone-quality, uniformly distributed, how to detach a
melody from its harmonic setting, correct progression of parts,
and solve all such problems, but will never be able to teach the
art of poetic orchestration. To orchestrate is to create, and this
is something which cannot be taught.

It is a great mistake to say: this composer scores well, or, that
composition is well orchestrated, for orchestration is part of the
very soul of the work. A work is thought out in terms of the
orchestra, certain tone-colours being inseparable from it in the
mind of its creator and native to it from the hour of its birth.
Could the essence of Wagner's music be divorced from it orchestration?
One might as well say that a picture is well drawn in colours.

More than one classical and modern composer has lacked the
capacity to orchestrate with imagination and power; the secret of
colour has remained outside the range of his creative faculty.
Does it follow that these composers do not know how to orchestrate?
Many among them have had greater knowledge of the
subject than the mere colourist. Was Brahms ignorant of orchestration?
And yet, nowhere in his works do we find evidence of
brilliant tone or picturesque fancy. The truth is that his thoughts
did not turn towards colour; his mind did not exact it.

The power of subtle orchestration is a secret impossible to transmit,
and the composer who possesses this secret should value it
highly, and never debase it to the level of a mere collection of
formulæ learned by heart.

Here I may mention the case of works scored by others from
the composer's rough directions. He who undertakes such work
should enter as deeply as he may into the spirit of the composer,
try to realise his intentions, and develop them in all their essential
features.

Though one's own personality be subordinate to that of another,
such orchestration is nevertheless creative work. But on the other
hand, to score a composition never intended for the orchestra, is
an undesirable practice. Many musicians have made this mistake
and persist in it. [1] In any case this is the lowest form of instrumentation,

akin to colour photography, though of course the
process may be well or badly done.

As regards orchestration it has been my good fortune to belong
to a first-rate school, and I have acquired the most varied experience.
In the first place I have had the opportunity of hearing
all my works performed by the excellent orchestra of the St. Petersburgh
Opera. Secondly, having experienced leanings towards
differenct directions, I have scored for orchestras of different sizes,
beginning with simple combinations (my opera The May Night
is written for natural horns and trumpets), and ending with the
most advanced. In the third place, I conducted the choir of the
Military Marine for several years and was therefore able to study
wind-instruments. Finally I formed an orchestra of very young
pupils, and succeeded in teaching them to play, quite competently,
the works of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Glinka, etc. All this has
enabled me to present this work to the public as the result of
long experience.

As a starting-point I lay down the following fundamental axioms:

• I. In the orchestra there is no such thing as ugly quality of tone.
• II. Orchestral writing should be easy to play; a composer's
  work stands the best chance when the parts are well written. [2]
• III. A work should be written for the size of orchestra that is to
  perform it, not for some imaginary body, as many composers
  persist in doing, introducing brass instruments in unusual keys
  upon which the music impracticable because it is not played
  in the key the composer intends.

It is difficult to devise any method of learning orchestration
without a master. As a general rule it is best to advance by
degress from the simplest scoring to the most complicated.

The student will probably pass through the following phases: 1. the
phase during which he puts his entire faith in percussion instruments,

believing that beauty of sound emanates entirely from this
branch of the orchestra — this is the earliest stage; 2. the period
when he acquires a passion for the harp, using it in every possible
chord; 3. the stage during which he adores the wood-wind and
horns, using stopped notes in conjunction with strings, muted or
pizzicato; 4. the more advanced period, when he has come to
recognise that the string group is the richest and most expressive
of all. When the student works alone he must try to avoid the
pitfalls of the first three phases. The best plan is to study full-scores,
and listen to an orchestra, score in hand. But it is difficult
to decide what music should be studied and heard. Music
of all ages, certainly, but, principally, that which is fairly modern.
Fairly modern music will teach the student how to score — classical
music will prove of negative value to him. Weber, Mendelssohn,
Meyerbeer (The Prophet), Berlioz, Glinka, Wagner, Liszt, and
modern French and Russian composers—these will prove his best
guides. It is useless for a Berlioz or a Gevaert to quote examples
from the works of Gluck. The musical idiom is too old-fashioned
and strange to modern ears; such examples are of no further use
today. The same may be said of Mozart and of Haydn (the father
of modern orchestration).

The gigantic figure of Beethoven stands apart. His music
abounds in countless leonine leaps of orchestral imagination, but
his technique, viewed in detail, remains much inferior to his
titanic conception. His use of the trumpets, standing out above
the rest of the orchestra, the difficult and unhappy intervals he
gives to the horns, the distinctive features of the string parts and
his often highly-coloured employment of the wood-wind,—these
features will combine causing the student of Beethoven to stumble
upon a thousand and one points in contradiction.

It is a mistake to think that the beginner will light upon no simple
and instructive examples in modern music, in that of Wagner and
others. On the contrary, clearer, and better examples are to be
found amongst modern composers than in what is called the
range of classical music.